Agenda

Desktop vs. Workstation

Overview

ECC Memory

CPUs - Xeon vs. Core

Video – Integrated and Discrete

ISV Certification

Hard Drive Options

Price Performance

Workstation Attributes

ECC Memory

Up to 12 DIMM Slots Max

Up to 6 I/O Slots

Intel Xeon CPUs

Professional Graphics

ISV Certification

SATA, SAS HDDs

Many RAID Configs

Price Performance Lead

For Content Creators

Runs SolidWorks faster and more reliably!

Desktop Attributes

Non-ECC Memory

4 DIMM Slots Max

4 I/O Slots Max

Intel Core-i CPUs

Consumer Graphics

No ISV Certifications

SATA HDDs

Limited RAID Configs

For Content Consumers

Can run Solidworks

Error Correcting Code (ECC)

• When a memory bit inadvertently flips states

• Caused by radiation, design problem, hardware failure

• Consequences• System crash… Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)• System lock up• Possibly no impact• And the worst thing…

• Bit errors occur approximately 1 per month per GB• Some data suggests a much higher error rate, up to 1 per day!

• Approx 25 times more likely to have system outage with non-ECC memory

Binary Decimal

10010011 147

10000011 131SolidWorks Data Corruption!

Bit flipped! I thought I made that a 147!

• ECC memory uses a 72 bit word size (64 bits for data and 8 bits for the ECC code)• Any single bit error is corrected

$0

$200

$400

$600

$800

$50 $80 $100 $150

4 Hour Down Time

User hourly rate

• Only in Workstation/Server chipsets• Xeon CPUs• Desktop motherboard chipsets do not support ECC

• ECC memory is about twice the cost of non-ECC• About $35 per GB

• Downtime cost to your business!

•What’s the cost if bad data is released to production?

• ECC memory support • Better Graphics• More Performance

Intel® HD Graphics 2000

Intel® HD Graphics 3000

Intel® HD Graphics P3000

1.Intel® Xeon® E3 1225 supports 6M Cache – 2. Intel® Xeon® E3 1225 does not support Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology 3. Intel® Xeon® E3 1225 only supports up to 8 way multi tasking 4. Intel® Core™i3 processors will support ECC memory when paired with the Intel® C200 Chipset Series used on workstation platforms.

4 4 4

Workstation Desktop

Recommend Xeon CPUs for 3D CAD

Recommend HD P3000 graphics or discrete video

Recommend using ECC memory

For Content creators

Higher performing Xeon CPUs for;

•Need more than one discrete video card•Need more than 32 GB of memory•Need more cores for improved simulation and rendering!

85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120

Score (sec, lower is better)

SolidWorks 2011 Performance Processor Subscore

Core i3-21203.3 GHz

Xeon E3-12203.1 GHz

Xeon E3-12703.4 GHz 15%

7%

Professional Workstation Features Supported such as RealView

Intel® Xeon® processor E3 family Intel® HD Graphics P3000

Intel® Core™ i7Intel® HD Graphics 3000

SolidWorks 2011 Performance TestGraphics Score

50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70

Xeon E3-1275

Core i3-2120HD 2000

10%

Graphics Score (Lower is better)

Note: All of the Intel Xeon E3-12x5 CPUs have HD P3000 graphics and all perform the same on this test

• Longer life cycles• More reliability and stability• Certified drivers that have been tested with ISV software

Target User

Enterprise Support

NVIEWSupport

Productivity Apps

TestingMulti Display Technology

Prof3D AppsISV Cert

Product Lifecycle

NVIDIA Warranty

Quadro®Design &

VisualizationProfessional

Mosaic Professional

Display Scaling

36 months 3-year

GeForce Consumer Surround 9-12 months 1-yr

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

SolidWorks 2011 Performance TestGraphics Subscores

Score (lower is better)

Core i3-2120Intel HD 2000

Xeon E3-1275Intel HD P3000

Xeon E3-1270 NVIDIA Quadro 400

Xeon E3-1270NVIDIA Quadro 600

Xeon E3-1270NVIDIA Quadro 2000

Intel Integrated

Video

NVIDIADiscrete

Video50%

If you need the horsepower of a 3D video card, this demo will help illustrate the performance difference between

integrated and discrete graphics

If you are using an older video card…

If you work on… Recommended Video Solution

Small assemblies with simple parts Intel Integrated HD Graphics P3000

Medium assemblies with simple parts NVIDIA Quadro 2000

Large assemblies with simple parts, orMedium assemblies with complex parts

NVIDIA Quadro 4000

Large assemblies with complex parts NVIDIA Quadro 5000

• SolidWorks has been tested on the hardware platform

• Assurance that SolidWorks will run properly

• Many problems and bugs have been fixed

• Better customer support, some ISV’s will not support their app on non-certified platforms

• Less risk having to spend time figuring out why your hardware is not running SolidWorksproperly!

• Optimized drivers for SolidWorks

Consumer Video (GeForce/Radeon) Intel HD P3000 NVIDIA Quadro

400 - 6000SolidWorks

Version

2012

2011

2010

Data from SolidWorks website, using Windows 7 64 bit OSNot all certified Professional cards are listed

SolidWorks Certified Video Solutions

Attribute SATA SAS SSD (SATA)

Acoustics Low High None

Reliability (MTBF) 700k hrs 1.6m hrs Depends on usage

Sequential Read Max (MB/s) 70 170 260

Sequential Write Max (MB/s) 70 100 250

4K Random Read (MB/s) 0.3 1.4 14

4K Random Write (MB/s) 1 1.1 35

Approximate Price $0.2 / GB $1.1 / GB $1.6 / GB

Platform Support All Workstation/Server

All

RAID Name MinHDDs What it does Benefit

0 Striping 2 Writes data across multiple drives, allows data to be written andread faster

Speed

1 Mirroring 2 Writes the same data across multiple drives Redundancy

5 Striping with Parity

3 Writes data across multiple drives with parity bits Speed and Redundancy

10 Striped with Mirroring

4 Combines RAID 1 and RAID 0 together - Speed plus fault tolerance Speed and Redundancy

Notes – Raid 5 vs. 10When a drive fails in a RAID 5 config, you can continue to read data but can no longer write until the failed drive is replacedWhen a drive fails in a RAID 10 config, you can continue to operate as usual and replace the failed drive at a later time

• Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)• Different ways to use more than one HDD

• To improve performance• To improve availability• To improve both performance and availability

Notes; • Performance desktop was an Intel Core i5-2400, 4 GB RAM, Integrated Intel HD Graphics 2000 • Lenovo ThinkStation E30 CPUs as listed, all had 4 GB RAM• Video as listed (NVIDIA Quardro = Qxxx)

Lenovo E30 ThinkStation Vs. Performance Desktop

For less than the cost of a performance desktop you can get more performance out of a workstation!

Increasing PerformanceIn

crea

sing

Cos

t

Check out my blogsite at www.cadcamperformance.com

• Not a commercial for Lenovo! • Weekly blog roundup• Papers related to SolidWorks performance

• Case studies• Reference Architecture• etc.